“Where is he?” I say instead.
“I insisted he go home. I know he’s got business of his own that has gone unattended while he’s been running the inn for me. There aren’t any guests at the moment. The four who were here left this morning, but I’m guessing more refugees will be arriving in the days ahead as the southern roads out of the city become accessible. Let’s go inside, wash and rest up, and change our clothes.”
I look down at my soiled shirtwaist. “I don’t have any other clothes. I had to abandon my bag when we evacuated the pavilion.”
“I have plenty of dresses that you can choose from and which I won’t fit into for a while yet. I owe you everything, Sophie. Everything I have is yours.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“But I do. Of all the people in San Francisco who might’ve helped me at the worst moment of my life, that it was you...”
She is thinking of the man we both unwittingly married. She is thinking maybe that should make us enemies. But in truth, it has bound us together like family. Like kindred souls.
We are both quiet for a moment. A cool breeze kicks around us and I get a good whiff of how I smell.
“So how about that bath?” I say.
We spend the rest of the afternoon cleansing ourselves of the filth and grime clinging to our skin and hair. It feels so good to put on a clean dress, even one that isn’t mine. I don’t care that it’s a wee bit short on me and the buttons are tight. By early evening we are all of us rested and sweetly smelling of lemon verbena, and the horrible clothes we were wearing before are soaking in a tub of hot water and suds. While Kat and I take care of the baby, Belinda makes us a quick supper of sausages, fried potatoes, and pickled carrots she’d preserved last summer. Elliot brings by freshly cut wood for the stove for tomorrow and makes sure there’s nothing else we need before we retire for the night. He eyes me carefully when he comes, but I don’t see suspicion there; it’s more like gratitude, perhaps even admiration.
Before he leaves he pries open the strongbox for me. Inside is a woman’s wedding ring—Annabeth’s, perhaps?—forty dollars in cash, and a key for a safe-deposit box for a San Francisco bank that I know for certain is now a hulking, burned-out skeleton of a building. I don’t know if boxes like these can survive a devastating fire. I don’t know if I care.
When the girls are at last tucked in bed and Belinda and I are sitting in the large common room with cups of tea, she tells me about the conversation with Elliot hours before.
“James—I mean Martin—had come home hours after I left, just before twilight,” Belinda tells me. “When he found Elliot here instead of me, he asked where I was and Elliot told him that I had gone to San Francisco in search of him. Elliot explained I’d found the address in the coat pocket and that I was going to see if the person at the address could help me find James. Martin had left immediately, even though it was getting dark, to head back toSan Francisco because he knew I was going to findyou. I don’t know why he arrived at your house so many hours later and looking the way he did with his boots and trousers all muddy. Elliot feels badly that he sent Martin in our direction, Sophie. He feels so badly about it.”
“He couldn’t have known not to tell Martin where you’d gone.”
“Yes, I told him that, but he’s angry with himself nonetheless. He never liked Martin; I told you that before. He wishes very much he’d told him nothing. Martin would’ve stayed here, most likely waiting for me to come home. And we could’ve gone to the police and they would have come here and arrested him.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to go to the police,” I remind her. “The next day was the earthquake.”
“Still, things would be different.”
I see a flash of an image of Belinda, the girls, and me arriving here at the inn today and finding Martin instead of Elliot. Because if Elliot had told Martin nothing, that’s what could very well have happened. “They could be worse,” I tell her.
A few seconds of silence pass between us.
“Did you tell him what happened?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“And you trust him?”
“I do. He still cares for me, Sophie. Even after all of this, he still loves me. He would never do anything to hurt me or those I care about.”
A few more quiet seconds pass.
“He knows about Kat? And he knows where I have to go? What I have to do?”
“Yes. He... he said he’d accompany you if you don’t want to go alone. I told him how hard this will be for you. He’ll take you if you want him to.”
I find the notion touching, a generous gesture from an obviously kind man. But I’ll not be taking anyone with me on the journey to Arizona. I want the last hours I have Kat all to myself.
I tell her this, and Belinda nods in understanding. She knows the depths of mother-love now.
